


No Remedy for Memory

by Theyna_Shipper



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [31]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beaches, Can I fit my domesticity depression and lightouse obsession into one fic?, Death, Discussions of Past Abuse, Dissociative Fugues, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of alcohol, Mentions of drugs, Non-Linear Narrative, Not actually dead?, Past Abuse, babies ever after, highschool sweethearts, small town, yes - Freeform, yes i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26368381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyna_Shipper/pseuds/Theyna_Shipper
Summary: Ben and Rey meet when they are seven years old. They spend the next few years slowly falling in love.Then, just before they turn eighteen, just before they're supposed to get married, Rey disappears.A month later, she's found dead in the woods.~~~~~~~~~The small-town highschool sweethearts AU where Ben is trying to work through his feelings after Rey's death.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637683
Comments: 22
Kudos: 103





	No Remedy for Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to gargammella for beating!
> 
> I researched dissociative fugue pretty extensively for this fic, but if you are more familiar with the condition, and see something wrong, please let me know. 
> 
> This little plot baby has been bouncing around my head for a while but I only just got it down. I had a hard time writing the ending, and it took a while til I was satisfied with it, but I think you'll enjoy. 
> 
> Please check trigger tags before reading.

They are seven years old when they meet. 

Rey is sitting on a fence at the very edge of the playground, swaying her stick-thin legs between the wooden beams. 

Ben is skulking by the playground, blocked out of all the other circles of children, looking for something to bridge the half-hour gap that defines his social status.

Then he sees the skinny girl sitting on the fence, the new girl, the girl who looks as lonely as he is. 

His shoes crunch on the brown grass as he crosses the yard. He tries to boost himself onto the fence next to her, but clearly it is harder than it seems, and he settles for leaning against the railing. 

“Why don’t you have any friends?” Ben demands, his seven-year-old honesty coming off a little to blunt. 

Rey curls in on herself, looking hurt. “That’s mean.” 

“No, it’s not,” Ben says matter-of-factly. “I don’t have any friends.”

Rey seems to acknowledge the logic of this. “Why not?” 

“I’m rude.” Well, sometimes he gets too emotional, says things he shouldn’t. It scares people away. “But I asked you first.”

“I’m _weird_ ,” Rey replies, sounding like she is repeating what she’s been told. About the way she zones out and wanders off, finds herself places and can’t remember how she got her. How she barely remembers anything before she was six years old. 

“You’re not _weird,”_ Ben tells her. 

Rey smiles. It’s not exactly a compliment, but even she understands that Ben meant more than he said. “You’re nice,” she decides.

* * *

“Yesterday was two years.”

“Two years since she died,” Amilyn confirms. 

“Since they found her body,” Ben corrects. She was dead at least a day before they found her. 

“And how was that?” his therapist asks gently.

“I felt like crap,” he replies. “Well, more like crap than usual.”

Amilyn nods, and invites him to continue.

“I stayed in bed most of the morning,” he admits. “Got up. I went to the grocery store for some reason.”

“OK. What did you do there?”

“Mostly spaced out. Blocked the aisles. Bought some crap Rey would have liked.”

“Anniversaries are always hard,” she explains. “The important thing is that you made it through the day. And it _will_ get better. Every day, it will get a little easier.”

It hasn’t. It feels like it never will. But Ben just nods, and listens to what Amilyn tells him.

* * *

It’s not what anyone would have expected. That Ben Solo-Organa, the angry and antisocial boy, and Rey Palpatine, the gentle girl with a tragic past, would become fast friends. But within a week of Rey moving in with her grandfather, they are inseparable. 

And three and a half years pass, and now they’re ten years old, and it’s the last day of fifth grade, and they’re sitting together on the fence (Ben learned how to climb it three years ago, after weeks of begging Rey to show him).

“We’re gonna be in middle school next year,” Rey says seriously. 

“Soon we’ll be teenagers,” Ben agrees with equal solemnity. 

“Will we still be friends?” Rey asks. “When we’re teenagers?” 

“Of course,” Ben says firmly. “We’re best friends. Forever. Remember?” They made this promise to each a year, when Kaydel told Rey her best friend couldn’t be a _boy_ , and Rey and firmly defended Ben’s rank.

Rey shakes her head. “Not forever. One day you’ll get married. Then your wife has to be your best friend.” She makes it clear that this is an unshakable rule. 

“What if you’re my wife?” Ben suggests. “Then we could still be best friends.”

Rey giggles. “My grandpa wouldn’t like that.” Ben’s parents and Rey’s grandfather… well, they have a history, and while the Solo-Organas will let it slide for the kids’ sake, Sheev Palpatine barely tolerates his presence. 

“Screw him,” Ben replies, causing Rey to bawk momentarily at his language. “I’m going to marry you someday, Rey.”

* * *

And now they’re eleven, and Ben’s pledge to marry her is long forgotten, in the transient nature of children’s thoughts, and they’re exploring high in the branches of a fragrant eucalyptus tree. 

“BEN AND REY, SITTING IN A TREE, KAY EYE ESS ESS EYE EN GEE!” a group of elementary schoolers chant at the base of the tree.

“Screw off!” Ben shouts back. 

The children giggle and scatter, and Ben and Rey go back to scaling the trunk at a height his mother certainly wouldn’t have approved of, if she were there. 

“Have you ever kissed a girl?” Rey demands suddenly.

“No,” Ben admits. “I was supposed to kiss Jannah during Truth-or-Dare once- but I didn’t want to.”

“Oh,” Rey replies, looking relieved 

“Have you ever kissed a boy?” 

“No.” She smiles cryptically. “I like the way the Eucalyptus bark smells, don’t you?”

* * *

They’re twelve when Rey disappears the first time. 

Ben’s parents have to sit him down and explain to him: some people hurt Rey when she was very young. She tries to block it out of her mind, sometimes not even realizing she’s doing it. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes she blocks out everything and forgets. But she always remembers in a couple hours. It’s called _dissociative fugues,_ they tell him. It’s rare, and the best way to help her is to make her feel safe.

She’ll be okay, they tell her. The police are looking for her. She’s probably already coming back. But he can’t go out looking for her. He needs to stay safe. 

Ben’s just confused. He’s twelve years old and his best friend has gone missing, and nothing in his life has prepared him for this. This is what happens on TV shows and movies and thrillers, this is what happens in New York or LA or somewhere big and far away. This doesn’t happen in _Naboo._

They find her three days later. A trucker picked her up on the side of the road, trying to hitchhike to a place called Jakku. He’d remembered the Amber Alert, and took her to the police station

Rey comes out of the fugue somewhere at the police station. She’s just a little shaken, but they still take her to the hospital to make sure she isn’t hurt. 

Han and Leia drive him all the way to the hospital in Pismo Beach at midnight, knowing he won’t rest easy until he sees Rey again, and that Rey probably needs to see a friend right now. 

Ben’s a troubled kid. He has problems with anger and anxiety. But with a scared Rey curled in his arms, he’s gentle and quiet. 

Leia looks at them, and knows there’s nothing more precious in the world to Ben than that girl, and that he’ll keep her safe as long as they both have breath in their bodies.

* * *

Ben doesn’t learn the full story of what happened to her until years later, weeks after she died. 

When a beautiful teenage girl dies in a little beach town, the media circus performs the story for everything it has. Even better, she has a tragic past, and has been in the news once before. Ben can’t avoid it forever.

Rey’s parents were addicts, and got in trouble with their dealers. They _sold_ four-year-old Rey to pay off their debts, and the dealers kept her until the police finally discovered their hideout. 

The police found Rey in a basement during the drug bust, heavily and dangerously sedated. When she finally wakes up in the hospital, she barely remembers anything. She remembers Mommy and Daddy leaving. They don’t need to ask to know that she’s been hurt, badly, several times. 

No one ever learns the full extent of what they did to her, including Rey. Still, the evidence is so overwhelming, there’s no way those men will ever leave prison. Ben’s not sure what would keep him from killing them with his bare hands if they did.

* * *

Ben is surrounded by snapped pencils, all over the floor. He can’t help it, he just feels _angry,_ at everything.

He does his best to keep out of fights, they make Rey upset. But he has to let it out somehow.

Rey walks into the empty classroom and sees Ben crouched on the ground amid the tiny pile of destruction.

“I’m your friend, Ben,” she promises. “And I will be no matter what. But you need to work on this. You can’t get into fights, or break something, every time you feel mad.”

“I _know,”_ Ben growls. “I just don’t know how to-”

“Talk to me,” Rey replies. “When you feel like fighting someone or breaking something, talk to me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he hisses.

“You’d never hurt me, Ben.”

* * *

Ben spends most of eighth grade hopelessly infatuated with Rey. Of course, there’s nothing to say he hasn’t been hopelessly infatuated with her before, but it’s now that he _notices._

He didn’t know what he was talking about when he was ten years old and decided they would be best friends forever when they got married. Now, though, he’s helplessly taken with her. 

That summer, his parents send him off to his uncle, hoping Luke can help him work out his “issues”. Rey hates it. Summer is _their_ time. They stay out on the beach until it’s inexcusably late, they eat ice cream, they explore the abandoned lighthouse for the hundredth time. Both their birthdays are in the summer!

“It’ll only be two months,” Ben tries to assure her as he leans out the car window, feeling just as miserable as Rey. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Two months is too long,” Rey insists. “I’ll be lonely.”

“I’ll miss you too,” he promises. Han is stepping out of the house now, and he’ll be gone soon. 

Before Ben can say anything, Rey leans in the window and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. 

“I’ll see you in August!” she squeaks as he drives away.

* * *

“Ben, sweetie, do you want to come downstairs? Uncle Luke’s here?”

Friends and relatives have been coming in and out for the past few days, leaving food and condolences and asking Ben how he’s doing. Ben hasn’t left his room, even though his mother asks him to at least twice a day. 

“Leave me alone,” he snaps. “I don’t want to see anyone.” _I want to see Rey._

“Ben,” Leia sighs. “You can’t stay up here forever.”

“Let me finish writing the obituary,” he snaps. He wouldn’t trust anyone else with this. And how is he supposed to capture Rey’s life and spirit in a newspaper blurb? This is the last thing he will ever do for Rey. He has to do it properly. 

“I’ll tell Luke,” Leia says. “I’ll bring up your dinner later, ok?”

* * *

Ben comes back from Luke’s with two things. 

First, he learns that working out is a way for him to channel all his pent-up energy in a healthy way. 

Second, all the working out helps him grow out into his awkward, gangly body. Even the girls who made fun of him in middle school would admit he’s growing up to be quite good looking.

He’s still stuck on Rey. 

Rey, too, has grown up over the summer. Her skinny body has filled out into feminine curves, her round face has become more grown-up. 

She tackles Ben the second she steps out of his car, having waited for him all day when she knew he was coming home. She’s expected him to fall back into the grass, the way he did when they were little kids. 

But Ben is a lot taller now, stronger. He catches Rey and holds her against his chest, while she laughs with spritelike glee.

“I missed you,” she finally says. Her legs are wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck. Has she always been so small, so light?

“I missed you too.” He slowly lowers her to the ground, but she keeps her hands locked behind his neck. 

“You’ve grown,” she realizes, practically standing on tiptoe to look at him.

“So have you,” Ben replies. “You’ve grown… more beautiful.” He’s so _hopelessly_ entranced by her eyes, her heart, her everything. 

And they’ll never be sure who leaned in first, and Rey will always insist that it was Ben, and Ben will always insist it was Rey, but it doesn't matter, because their lips are pressed together, and his hands are on her hips, and it’s awkward and messy and their teeth clack against each other, but it’s perfect, and they can’t believe they’ve waited this long to do this. 

They both burst into childish giggles, and Ben dives in for another kiss, this one neater and better, and that leaves them both a little breathless. 

They’ll never be the same, and that’s okay. 

Because _this_ is so much better.

* * *

This time, it’s exactly what anyone would have expected. That the two kids who were a little lost and a little lonely and a lot passionate, would be exactly what the other needed. 

That Ben Solo and Rey Palpatine are sneaking off to kiss underneath the bleachers. That where there’s one, the other is never far behind. 

That they’re ridiculously and deliriously happy in a way their friends might not have expected from either of them.

That with their family history, they’d be Romeo and Juliet, except God knows they’ll get their happy ending because is there really anyone else in the whole world for them but each other? 

Except right now, they’re fourteen and Ben is carrying Rey across the hot pavement because she forgot her shoes _again_ and it’s definitely an accident and not because she wants him to carry her again. 

But would he really mind either way?

* * *

“Hey,” Ben’s roommate says. “I’m Poe.”

“Ben. Don’t touch my stuff and we’ll get along fine.” He doesn’t have energy to engage his roommate. Even now that he’s withdrawn at Santa Barbara and gone to freaking _New Jersey_ instead. 

Rey is supposed to be his roommate. They’re supposed to be living in the married student housing, and cooking together in the basement kitchen and complaining about their classes. 

He’s not supposed to be starting a semester late with _Poe_ in _New Jersey._

* * *

And they’re fifteen when he tells her he loves her. 

It’s the end of the summer, and it’s eleven at night when they slip out of a classmate’s birthday party to walk on the beach. Rey’s party shoes sway in her hands as she runs through the surf, her lacy cream-colored skirt whipping out behind her while her hair comes out of the buns she keeps it in. 

And she’s laughing. And she’s like some kind of nymph or fairy, her bohemian clothes whipping in the wind, her airy laughs filling the beach. Her cheeks are flushed and her lips are pink, and she’s so _alive._

“Wait up!” Ben calls as he kicks off her sneakers and socks and chases after her. Rey waits for him as the cold waves lap at her toes, shrieks with delight as he scoops her up and gives her a twirl. 

“Race you to the lighthouse?” she suggests, stars dancing in her eyes, ones that Ben knows must be reflected in his.

And it’s not a race, because they’re sprinting hand in hand while sea spray kicks up between them, and Rey’s just as fast as him even though he’s so much taller, and they reach the lighthouse in a matter of minutes, giggling and out of breath as Ben drags her up the stairs to the top floor. 

At some point, they started keeping pillows and blankets up here for sleepovers and stargazing and yes, kissing. The glass-paneled walls give them a fun sense of vertigo at being so high up with seemingly nothing between them and the sea below. The long-defunct light at the top is coated with beer bottles and cigarettes from teenagers sneaking up here to party. But the blankets and pillows hidden in a corner are theirs, indisputably theirs. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Rey sighs, staring at the waves crashing against the rocks. Ben pulls her into his lap and nuzzles her hair. “We’re so lucky, Ben.”

Ben looks into her hazel eyes, as if he hasn’t already memorized them a hundred thousand times by now. “I love you,” he whispers back. He _is_ lucky, lucky to be with her, lucky to be so happy. 

And he doesn’t even need her to say it back, but she does, she says he loves him with absolute certainty, and he captures her lips in a kiss (they’re better at it now).

They’re young, and they’re in love, and the world is theirs.

* * *

Rey gets a job in a garage that fall. At some point, her grandfather had money, but he lost most of it in lawsuits years ago, and the rest of it is going to full-time care for him now. 

A little is set aside for Rey’s college, but she wants to have more saved. They’ve talked a little about college- Rey wants to study engineering, Ben has no idea. 

He doesn’t like that Rey has to work at the garage. Sometimes she cuts herself, on the tools or the scrap, and he doesn’t like the way some of the men look at her. 

Rey insists she’s fine. She can take care of herself. If anything happened to her… well, nothing’s going to happen to her. He doesn’t have to worry about that. 

One day, he notices her sleeve ride up, and sees a big white bandage wrapped around her bicep. Instantly, an alarm flares. 

“What happened?” he asks softly, running his hand along her arm. 

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” she says, pulling her sweater down hurriedly. “Just a little cut.”

Rey doesn’t hide things from him. She hasn’t since they were eight years old. They know everything about each other. This isn’t like her. 

“Rey, that’s not a cut,” Ben insists. “Just tell me.”

Rey bites her lip. “I got a tattoo.”

Ben’s surprisingly unsurprised. In a way, it makes sense that Rey would want one. There’s a bit of roughness, and a bit of artistry. But she’s _fifteen._ Couldn’t she have waited? 

“When grandpa took me to San Francisco over the weekend, I ditched him for a couple hours and got this done. I can’t take the bandage off ‘til tomorrow, though.”

“You could have gotten hurt,” Ben replies, not really angry, but upset that Rey acted with so little concern for her own safety. “No one would have known where you were.”

Rey glares. “I’m not some helpless little girl, Ben. I did my research. I was careful.” 

“Rey, I didn’t mean-”

“Just let me live my life sometimes.” She hitches her bag over her shoulder and storms off. 

It’s their first real fight, over something more important than who gets the last of the sherbert, or whether the library or outside is better to study. But they can’t stay angry long, and they find each other- Ben going to Rey’s house, Rey going to Ben’s house- the next day to apologize.

Rey shows him the tattoo- a pair of hands, a man’s and a woman’s, clasped over a fire. It’s beautiful, and it almost seems to move and flicker as her bicep ripples. 

Really, it only makes her beautiful.

* * *

Leia sets the phone down with shaking hands. “That was the police.”

“Did they find her?” Ben demands. It’s been two months since she disappeared. Ben has been out every day he can, joining the search parties or the police or calling every business anywhere close to see if they’ve seen her. 

“They found her body, Ben,” Leia says through a haze of tears. “She’s dead, Ben.”

“No,” he whispers. “No… she can’t…” 

Leia nods. “They found her in the forest. You need to go down to the station to identify the body.”

Rey’s body is bruised, scratched, and torn. Her entire left arm is ripped off, eliminating the tattoo that would otherwise have made identifying her easy. 

It was most likely an animal attack, the police explain. She went missing in the forest. Probably another fugue. Something found her, did _this_ to her. 

Ben tries to find Rey in the body’s eyes, but the stars that made them hers are gone. She’s so battered and bloody he can’t see _her_ anymore.

“We just need a simple yes, son,” the officer tells him. “Is that her?”

“I- I can’t,” Ben chokes. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He can’t say that this lifeless corpse is Rey. He can’t.

In the end, her grandfather says yes.

* * *

And now they’re sixteen, and they spend all hours of the night up in Ben’s room, just kissing and cuddling and talking until ungodly early hours, before falling asleep side-by-side in his bed.

And then Rey wakes up in the morning and sneaks out, so she can make breakfast before her grandfather wakes up, and her bed barely gets slept in anymore because she might as well live with him. 

And Ben’s parents know. He’s an only child, and as busy as they are- his mother on the city council, his dad working- they know what’s going on in his life. 

And his mother remarks to him, that “it’s not polite to make a lady use the trellis,” and his father tells him not to do anything he wouldn’t (which is pretty terrible advice, he knows his parents had a courthouse wedding about a month before Ben was born), and Ben rolls his eyes and tells them they’re just _talking_.

In a way, it makes it less awkward, when they’re older and they _do_ start sleeping together. To know that he doesn’t need to hide, or be embarrassed. 

That when Rey drifts to sleep in his arms, everything in the world is _perfect._

* * *

It’s been over two years, and somehow Ben’s been pressured to go on a date again. 

And he doesn’t want to, but a part of him recognizes that someday he’ll have to go back to living in the real world. That he’s twenty years old and he can’t spend his whole life alone and heartbroken for Rey. 

And it’s not like he has to pursue this further. But he can put himself out there for once, and how bad can it be?

 _Very_ bad.

Kaydel is a nice girl. Sweet, pretty, conversational, smart. 

But Ben walks in and sees those two bluebirds bobbing in her ears, and it’s over. Two stupid little clay bluebirds. Two little clay bluebirds that bring back a rush of memories that’s like being stabbed in the neck

“I can’t do this,” he blurts. 

Kaydel’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m sorry?”

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” He throws down a handful of cash onto the table. “Buy yourself dinner. But I can’t do this.”

He can hear her protest as he walks out the restaurant door, and he knows he’s being selfish, but it’s like a sign, a sign that he cannot do this, not today.

* * *

Ben carefully puts the bluebird earrings in her ears, sliding on the rubber backs because Rey’s paranoid about them falling off. 

“I love you,” she whispers, as he delicately presses a kiss to her cupid’s bow. “Most ardently.”

“You really _did_ study for that literature final, hm?” Ben says coyly. He’d promised her he would buy the earrings if she got at least an 85 on the test. 

She got a 97. She didn’t even want the earrings that badly. She just wanted to make him proud. 

“I can’t believe you want to _study_ that, Ben. For your whole life!” 

“It’s stories!” He replies. “It’s just getting to read stories.”

“But you have to think about them,” Rey groans. “What they _mean,_ and what the author was _feeling_ \- it ruins it. I just want to read a story for the story.”

“You have to appreciate the story in context,” Ben argues. “To understand properly.”

“Can’t a moment just be a moment?” Rey retorts. “Without needing all the background?”

“Would this moment be the same,” Ben replies, pushing Rey up against the back wall outside the jewelry store. “If I hadn’t been in love with you since the day I laid eyes on you?”

Rey only responds with a soft hum in the back of her throat as Ben trails kisses up her neck.

* * *

It’s the first time Ben has ever been to a funeral. 

His grandparents died before he was born, his other relatives were mostly still around. 

But Ben Kenobi, family friend, resident curmudgeon, and Ben’s namesake, has passed away, and he and Rey are walking home from his funeral. 

Rey looks shaken. She didn’t know Mr. Kenobi very well, no better than anyone else in the tiny town. But she’s clinging to Ben’s arm like a lifeline, shivering through her black wool dress. 

“When I die-” she whispers to Ben.

“Don’t. Don’t say that.” He can’t even _think_ about the possibility of her dying.

“Please,” she says. “I need to know that you’ll make sure I’m taken care of properly.”

“I’ll probably be gone first, Rey,” he argues. He can’t even picture a world without her in it. 

“But just in case,” she pleads. “Just let me tell you.”

Ben resigns himself to it, and lets Rey finish the thought.

“Don’t let them put me in a box, and bury me.” She shakes her head. “I want to be cremated, and have my ashes scattered on the beach, ok?”

“OK,” Ben agrees solemnly, but God, it’s morbid. 

“What about you?” she asks. “How do you want to be buried?”

He squeezes her hand. “I’ll have my ashes scattered on the beach,” he decides. “That way, when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you.

* * *

Ben lets the fine grey powder run through his hands, everything that’s left of Rey. 

Everyone from the memorial dispersed long ago. He and his family are left alone on the beach, while Ben brings himself to part with Rey’s earthly remains. 

Slowly, he lets them pour through his fingers and onto the beach, quickly becoming indistinguishable from the grains of sand. 

It’s exactly how Rey would have wanted it. 

He scatters the contents of the urn onto the beach, some on the sand, some in the water, so some of her can stay in Naboo while the rest travels everywhere she never got to go. 

When he’s done, his parents start to go home, but Ben has one more thing he needs to do. 

He walks to the lighthouse, takes the stairs two at a time, till he’s at the top. 

He takes the almost-empty urn and wraps it in one of their blankets.

* * *

And now they’re seventeen, and they’re talking about getting married. 

Jannah is only two years older than Ben, but she’s already having her dream day in a church and a white dress, and he and Rey are there to give their congratulations. 

Promise rings and even antiquated fraternity pins have been passed around at school. It’s not uncommon for people to get married fresh out of high school, as soon as they’re eighteen, or even sooner if one of them is pregnant. But this is the first time he and Rey have talked about it.

“Did you have fun?” Ben asks as they wander through the garden behind the church, ducking out of the conversations of the other guests. 

“It was beautiful,” Rey replies. “Jannah was beautiful. The church was beautiful.” She shakes her head. “I just can’t imagine why she would get married _inside_. When I get married, it will be on the beach.”

“When _we_ get married, you mean, right? You wouldn’t think of doing something that important without me.” 

“Is that a _proposal_ , Ben Solo?” Rey giggles.

 _Is_ it? Ben’s never imagined a future where he and Rey aren’t together. Marriage would just be another part of that. 

“Yes,” he says firmly. “Yes. Will you marry me, Rey?”

Rey’s cheeks are sweetly pink. “Isn’t it a bit _gauche_ to propose at someone else’s wedding?”

“It doesn’t count until I get you a ring,” Ben replies. “You’ll marry me, Rey?”

“Of course,” she whispers, dragging him down to her lips.

* * *

Rey gets into UC Santa Barbara. So does Ben. 

Come September, they’ll go together, and study mechanical engineering and English literature, and they’ll live in the married student housing. 

Their families have already given blessings (reluctant in some cases) for a July wedding on the beach, after they’re both eighteen. 

They’re in a dizzy bliss. School is ending, and their lives are about to start, and everything is _perfect._

Rey hasn’t had a fugue since she was fifteen, and went to the gas station alone at midnight. That one only lasted an hour. It’s a thing of the past. 

Their future is bright, and just within reach.

* * *

“They reopened Rey’s case.”

His father’s gruff voice speaks to him over the phone, which can only mean his mother is too emotional to deliver the news herself.

When Ben doesn’t reply, Han continues. 

“Two women were killed on a hike near Big Sur. They were reviewing the files from Rey’s case, and thought it might be connected.”

“And?”

“They retested the DNA,” he explains. “Just for verification or something.”

He can hear Han take a deep breath. 

“It wasn’t Rey.”

“I don’t…”

“The body. It wasn’t Rey’s.”

Ben nearly loses his grip on the phone. “Then where is Rey?”

“Ben, we don’t…”

_”Where the hell is Rey?”_

* * *

And now it’s the first day of summer, senior year is over, and they’re almost adults.

“I can’t believe we have to wait another _six weeks _to get married,” Rey groans, as they curl up on a beach blanket together; it’s late at night but the summer heat is only just fading.__

__“We still need to plan,” Ben replies. “You don’t even have a dress.”_ _

__“I just want to be together.” She nuzzles his sweater gently._ _

__“Me too.” He kisses her on the head. “But it will be wonderful. And it’ll come before you know it.”_ _

__“I know,” she sighs._ _

__After a few more minutes, cuddling on the beach, Ben starts to stand up. “I’m going to go home, ok?”_ _

__Rey nods. “I’m going to stay out a little longer.”_ _

__Ben kisses her goodnight, though she’ll be back at his house within the hour. “See you soon, love.”_ _

__That night, she goes missing._ _

* * *

__He doesn’t like to talk about what happened after._ _

__Except that Rey didn’t come to his house that night, and Ben was foolish enough to think that she’d just gone home, and in the morning no one knew where she was._ _

__And what follows was two months of frantic searching before the news breaks, and breaks Ben with it._ _

__And he doesn’t go to school in the fall, but re-applies to new places for spring semester, and settles for whatever gets him as far away from the places he shared with Rey._ _

__And that he lives for _two years_ without knowing that she’s still out there. _ _

__And when he arrives in Naboo a week after he first hears the news about Rey, she is sitting in his parents’ kitchen, and they hold each other sobbing until they’re calm enough for Rey to explain._ _

__Explain how she lost a year of her life. Woke up alone in a hotel in Arizona to find she’s made a whole new life for herself. A new job, a new name, _everything.__ _

__To find out that the world thinks she’s dead._ _

__And she would have gone to him as soon as she could, she explains, and she would have found Ben._ _

__But she Googled his name before she did. And she found an obituary for a Ben Solo in London (and Ben had always wanted to go to London). And was barely a proper obituary, except it read how he died and when he died, and didn’t even list his family._ _

__And it said he shot himself._ _

__And the obituary was from one week after Rey found out._ _

__Exactly one year after she disappeared._ _

__And she couldn’t go back to living a life he wasn’t part of._ _

__So she kept the fake name and fake life for a year and a half._ _

__Until she saw her face on TV, and learned they were still looking for her. That _he_ was still looking for her. So she came home as soon as she could._ _

__Because home for Rey is Ben, and home for Ben is Rey, and they’ve finally come _home.__ _

* * *

__It takes years for things to be normal again._ _

__They don’t get their fairytale ending right away, or ever, not really._ _

__Rey’s still missing a year of her life. More, really, because she wasn’t even living as herself for another year and a half after that._ _

__They’ve both grown up while they’ve been apart. Grown different. They have to get to know each other in a new way._ _

__It takes therapy and tears and arguments and frustration. It takes love and patience and late nights and long talks._ _

__But they’ve always been each other's remedy, and comfort, and everything else, and sooner or later they’ll always find their way back to each other._ _

__And five years later, they’re standing hand in hand on the beach saying the vows they wrote when they were seventeen._ _

__And they’re terrible because they were _seventeen_ , for God’s sake, and they were seventeen and hopelessly in love, and now they’re twenty-five and just as hopelessly in love as they were, but they’re older and they’re sadder, and maybe a little smarter. _ _

__Oh, and there’s the lighthouse._ _

__They buy the lighthouse and remodel it until it’s livable. They replace the broken windows. They buy furniture, and _real_ blankets and pillows, and everything else they need to make a proper house and a proper home. _ _

__They stay in Naboo for a long time, because they really need the comfort of a familiar while they try to rebuild their lives. Maybe when they’re older, they’ll go to all the places they could ever dream of. For now, they’re content to just go to the store, so long as they go together._ _

__The fugues have not come back, not for six years. Still, Rey doesn’t take the risk, and she carries a card with her name and Ben’s number wherever she goes. She knows it could always happen again, without warning, and it’s scary._ _

__But they’ve made it through all this together. They’ll take care of each other._ _

* * *

__They are twenty-seven years old when they meet their daughter. Black hair and hazel eyes and a bundle of happy noises in her parents’ arms._ _

__It was a long time before they felt safe and comfortable enough to have a baby. Rey was always terrified that she would walk away with the baby, or leave her and Ben alone._ _

__But their daughter is perfect, Hope is perfect, and Rey doesn’t think she could ever walk away from them._ _

__“Sometimes I’m still scared that this will all be a dream,” Ben confesses. “That I’ll wake up, and you’ll be gone, and none of this will be real.”_ _

__“If it is a dream, it’s a really good one.” Rey curls into this side. “I don’t think I could invent something this amazing.”_ _

__And it is amazing, and they are amazing._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate your comments!


End file.
